In the end a quiet aside from a senior member of the coaching staff served to remind John Terry that he is not quite as powerful now as he once was. The favoured Chelsea tactic of clearing the air at team meetings was apparently inadvisable, the level of back-up the centre-half could expect perhaps not quite what he had originally envisaged. Welcome to life back in the ranks.

An attempt to reassert influence appeared to be stifled here yesterday after a day of mutinous intrigue and political whisperings within Team England. That the whole episode culminated in some level of concession from Fabio Capello suggested this group can now refocus on Slovenia on Wednesday but Terry may not privately take much satisfaction from that. His astonishing pitch, delivered publicly, had been that of a player-manager in waiting, though he ended up looking more like what he is: a deposed captain.

There was something very Chelsea about the possible coup when it had first been mooted. The unrest surfaced in Cape Town but it could as easily have been at Cobham. Clear-the-air talks are commonplace in the post-José Mourinho era at the London club. They proved too much for Avram Grant and Luiz Felipe Scolari, whose authority was terminally undermined once senior players decided to act upon a groundswell of dissatisfaction, whether it was born of the manager's training techniques or game plans.

Even Carlo Ancelotti endured it last season, when Champions League elimination was followed by a sloppy draw at Blackburn that, had Manchester United not suffered their own subsequent blip, might have cost Chelsea the Premier League title. The Italian manager at Stamford Bridge reacted as positively as he could to his players speaking their minds. The boil was lanced and focus and momentum regained. Capello, experiencing his first World Cup as a manager but a veteran and far more of a disciplinarian than his compatriot, was never likely to prove quite so accommodating.

He may struggle to accept Terry's role as the public voice of an apparent revolt. The controversies in the centre-half's private life, with the effect they had on Wayne Bridge's international career, apparently forced Capello's hand in stripping him of the captaincy. Terry has always maintained his acceptance of the manager's decision, however hard it was to take at the time. The decision to detail his intentions ahead of yesterday's meeting is open to interpretation but it felt, at times, as if the 29-year-old was intent upon exacting some kind of revenge.

His rhetoric smacked of a deeper assumption: that players would turn to their natural born leader, to voice their disquiet in the team's time of need. The injured Rio Ferdinand is in rehabilitation back at Carrington. Steven Gerrard is the captain but not a ranter or raver. Frank Lampard is his deputy. Terry is still the tub-thumper.

"Since I lost the armband, nothing's ever changed for me," he said. "I was born to do stuff like that. Stevie's captain, Frank's vice-captain ... but I'm not distancing myself from responsibilities. I'm here as captain of Chelsea and as a big personality in the dressing room. Responsibility falls on me, Stevie, Lamps – all the experienced players – to get things going again. That's what we're trying to do."

That reference to being Chelsea's captain was significant. When things are going wrong at the Premier League champions, this is how a recovery is instigated, whether the manager feels comfortable with the situation or not. It has become the modern Chelsea way and it is what Terry might, understandably, consider the norm. His assumption, it seems, was to transpose that template on to the England set-up.

Yet the context is so different. Terry appears to have incorrectly judged the mood of the nation. Back at Chelsea fans have tended to vent their spleen at the management rather than the players when things have not been going well. Grant, Scolari and even, at times, Ancelotti were simply not Mourinho.

Given that the majority of the players at the club still date from the Portuguese's spell in charge – or at least enjoyed their heyday under his guidance – the Special One's successors have seemed fallible and appeared easy targets. The players, for whom Terry is a figurehead, were virtually exempt.

That is not the case with England's supporters. The nation was divided over his loss of the captaincy, some believing he should not have suffered for off-field misdemeanours and others believing that his actions risked splitting the dressing room. Either way he is not lauded by fans of the national team as he is at his club.

Furthermore the boos that rang out on Friday night at the Green Point Stadium were directed primarily at the players, and not Capello. The Italian's desire to implement strict discipline over a "golden generation" who had underachieved before his arrival had been welcomed. They had worked so effectively in qualification, after all. Seeing one of those players attempting to wrest back control was unlikely to be greeted with delight.

When it came to it, of course, the potential open discussion was choked. Unsettled as some of this squad have been, there seems to have been no real appetite for confrontation. The manager's will remains in place, with the concessions made all relatively minor. And, if the Chelsea way did not seem appropriate, then Terry will hope Capello's approach can still propel this team into the knock-out phase.